Who was Noah Enos? Fears of serial killer intensify after 16th body in 18 months pulled out of Chicago River
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Many fear that a serial killer could be on the loose in Chicago after the remains of 10 men and six women were pulled from the river and Lake Michigan in just over a year. The latest to be pulled from the water was 26-year-old Noah Enos, whose deceased body was found at the North Branch of the river, near North Elston Avenue’s 1300 block at around 9.45 am on Saturday, June 17, 2023.
Enos was pulled out of the river five days after he mysteriously vanished on June 12 when he was last seen leaving a concert at the Salt Shed music venue around 10 pm. An investigation has been launched into the case and the coroner's office is expected to perform an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of Enos’ death. The Chicago police and investigators are currently trying to piece together the timeline of what happened on Monday night. His girlfriend, Nicole Wijs, noted that at the concert, Enos was accompanied by his co-worker but they became separated after his phone died. She said that at about 9:30 pm, Noah and his colleague were captured on camera wandering around the premises. The same footage showed him leaving the area at around 10 pm.
Who was Noah Enos?
Wijs previously revealed that Enos sent her his final message at about 9 pm, and his phone died one hour later. After she failed to reach him, the girlfriend thought he might have gone for a drink with his coworker. However, when he still did not return by 4 am, Nicole drove by the Salt Shed because she felt something was wrong. “Even if he did want to go hang out with a friend, he would tell me. He would borrow friends’ phones to tell me,” she said. Nicole and Noah had been dating for almost two years, but they had been friends since middle school.
It was recently revealed that Enos had just started working at Frontier restaurant in Wicker Park before his tragic death. Wijs described his boyfriend to be charismatic, caring, incredibly intelligent, and a wonderful person as well as a wonderful partner and dad to their two dogs. At a vigil last week, she said, "I know Noah wasn't the first one to go missing and be found in the river, and I sure as s**t hope that he's the last." Eno's stepmother Kathy Vanderwarf and father Steven Enos also stated their family is working with private detectives and the Chicago police to determine what happened to their son, according to Daily Mail. A GoFundMe campaign has also been launched by Enos’ family to raise money for funeral expenses.
Who are the other victims?
The remains of ten men and six women have been pulled from the windy city river and Lake Michigan since March 2022. Only two of the 16 have been determined to be suicides while three have been ruled accidental drowning and five as drowning. According to NY Pos, patterns have been noticed as the bodies have piled up, with five men’s bodies recovered in the last six months. Chicago Police are insisting that the deaths are not connected despite growing support for the serial killer theory.
But former FBI agent Tracy Wilder told the outlet that she believes there could be a serial killer involved. "There are too many coincidences," said Walder, who also previously worked for the CIA. "In a case like this, there are so many similar patterns right across the board [so] it's not just a coincidence anymore," she added, pointing to the distances between the locations where the bodies have been found and the places where drownings were thought to have occurred "accidentally." According to Wilder, disposing of a body in a river is the ideal crime since "forensic evidence is going to be, for the most part, non-existent."